


within your universe

by shippingfandoms



Category: Silent Hill (Video Game Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 06:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15285594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shippingfandoms/pseuds/shippingfandoms
Summary: She had a pleasant face, Heather Mason. She was also busy bombarding Douglas with some anecdotes about her day before noticing he was there.--Henry has dreams about lives that aren't his, until one fateful assignment helps him piece everything together.





	within your universe

When Henry Townshend awoke one morning, he was gasping for air. Pausing, he noted the sunlight from the window, kept ajar—the walls, a pastel hue of green—and the radio humming in the background, left open the night before. There was no static. He couldn’t remember what the dream was all about, or why he felt so agitated, but as soon as he got up, he pried the window wide open, just to make sure that he could.

He sighed as the breeze hit his face. The world was alive around him, and he could hear every chirp, every rev, every sound from his open window. Somehow, knowing this comforted him a little. He wonders if he should call Eileen, but it might not be a good time—she had, after all, just gotten married the week before. He sometimes thinks about what could’ve been, but there’s no time for that now. Instead, he heads to the bathroom for a shower, thinking about the strange dream. Somehow, he had a feeling that his life was about to change. And recalling the last time he felt that way unnerved him.

* * *

Today’s assignment was care of a certain Douglas Cartland, thanks to an acquaintance’s referral. He didn’t typically take these assignments. But he was a little short on funds, and the said acquaintance happened to be Frank Sunderland, so he couldn’t help but feel a little bit obligated. Fortunately, it was a dull spot session with no fancy lighting needed. Douglas said he wanted some items photographed for a report, which Henry estimates would take a good two to three hours maximum, had it not been for an unexpected guest.

She had a pleasant face, Heather Mason. She was also busy bombarding Douglas with some anecdotes about her day before noticing he was there. She came up with some choice expletives, and Douglas just chuckled, like he’d seen this happen many times before.

When they made their acquaintance, he felt a certain chill down his spine, as if she was someone familiar. Something was unsettling about it, a hazy reticence at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t think about it too much because he was suddenly dragged to the storage room, preparing for the shoot. 

Wordlessly, Henry watched Heather lay down the items on the table, arranging them by shoot order. He tries to remember what his dream was about.

They stay there in silence as he takes the photos, but the girl is visibly impatient, tapping her feet and fidgeting when things get too monotonous. She tries not to take it out on him, however, and for the most part, she keeps cordial, coming up with ways to mask her boredom.

“So… you’re a photographer,” she says, and it’s apparent that she doesn’t do small talk that much. Usually, he’d brush it away—he wasn’t much of a talker, either—but they were the only people in the room, and it would’ve made things painfully awkward if he didn’t reply.

“Well, yeah,” he said, plainly. 

Eventually, she pries a bit more, seizing the opportunity to keep her boredom at bay. It’s clear to him that she was the precocious type, eyes inquisitive and knowing and voice sharp and smarting. But it was endearing, in a way, and when they actually did talk about the work at hand, she was fully lucid, keeping things brief and professional.

When he holds up a familiar-looking seal, however, he notices the sad look in her eyes, as if it meant something to her.

“Where did you get this?” he asked, and she takes it and cradles it in her palm.

“Just some janky cult,” she says, voice soft. But there’s rancor in her eyes, as if the cult had taken something valuable from her.

He’s waiting for her, counting the minutes since her last phone call. Cheryl, he thinks, They’re here. They’ve found us. Please don’t come home so soon.

The memory—if he could call it that—feels so raw and vivid that he almost drops his camera.

“Hey, are you alright?” Heather asks, and he looks at her, painfully, like he’s seen her for the first time. My darling. My baby girl. My Cheryl.

“I’m… fine,” he says, maintaining composure. “I guess I just got a little light-headed.”

“I’ll get some water,” she says, urgently. Before she turns to leave the room, however, Henry calls out to her, without really knowing why. 

“Heather,” he says, and she turns around like a gracious host.

“Yeah?”

“Have we,” he says, trying to eke out the words out of his mouth. “… have we met before?”

The conversation after that turns his three-hour maximum into five.

* * *

He sees her again a few days after he dropped off the prints. He doesn’t know how she found him, but she’s trying to play it cool, trying to not make a scene. Their eyes meet, and she sits across from him, macchiato in hand.

“Hey,” she says, like everything’s perfectly fine. Henry’s pretty sure everything isn’t, because the last time they met she had stomped out of the storage room and Douglas politely asked him to leave. He nonetheless greets her back, and she’s fiddling with the cup before taking a sip out of it.

“So… how have you been?” she says, and at this point, he knows this is probably her way of apologizing. 

“Um, fine, I guess?” he replies. “You?”

“Good. Uh, very good.”

The silence is awkward and deafening and heavy.

“So, um, about last week…”

“Yeah?”

She fiddles with the cup again, nervousness notwithstanding. Suddenly, she bursts, and the words spill out of her mouth and stumble over each other

“I’m super sorry I freaked out,” she said. “It’s just… you know? My dad’s kinda a touchy topic, since… you know…”

She gestures wildly as she rambles on, and Henry finds it cute, if not a little sad. Because if what she says is true, then the fact of Harry Mason’s death is a trauma she could never entirely escape from.

“Hey, it’s fine, really,” he says, in his usual soft-spoken way, giving her a small half-smile. 

At this point, she’s hiding in her hair, feeling a little embarrassed. “Yeah?” she says, looking through her bangs.

“Yeah.”

“Well, sorry again for last time,” she says, picking up her posture. “It’s just… it’s been years since he died, and I thought I would’ve been over it by now. I guess I wasn’t.” 

“I guess not.”

Death never felt as nice as knowing she’d still have her chance at life.

“But he’s happy, you know?”

She snorted. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. That you’re alive. Safe.”

A few tears managed to stray from her eyes, which she flicked instantly. She gave a mangled chuckle. “Well, that’s dad for you.”

It’s nice to see Heather feel better, he thinks to himself, noting the curve of her smile and how her eyes dance beyond the tears. It somehow calms the nagging behind his head, something that extends beyond his previous night’s nightmare.

“And what about you?” she says, suddenly, and he finds himself at a loss for words again.

“… me?”

“Yeah,” she said, spunk coming through her words. “Frank said you were quite the tenant back in South Ashfield.”

Chains. Blood on the wall, Walter’s crucified corpse. “He did?” Henry says, stuttering a bit. “How do you guys know Frank?” 

“That’s mostly Douglas, actually. Some years ago he was hired to look for Frank’s son and daughter-in-law in Silent Hill.”

Right, he heard about that. “Did he ever find them?”

“Well,” she said, eyes shifting.”He did, eventually. I helped him a bit with the investigation.”

“And?”

“We kinda found their car at the bottom of Toluca Lake.”

“Oh,” said Henry, and for a while they remained silent, sipping their drinks in between.

“Well,” he said again. “It’s good to know Frank doesn’t have to wonder anymore. He was a pretty nice guy.”

“Yeah,” she echoed. “I guess so.”

Another round of silence. Henry wonders if this was always the case when it came to talking to her, but he reckoned it was just him. He suddenly hears a muffled ringtone, and Heather takes her phone out of her bag, quirking her lip. “I guess that’s my cue to leave,” she says, grabbing the macchiato and waving her fingers at him. “See you when I see you!”

“Um, bye,” he muttered, close to a whisper, before watching her walk away. As she leaves, he wonders if they’ll meet again.

He somehow hopes they do.

* * *

He gets another assignment from Douglas. This time, he meets him at a convenience store where a robbery took place. He also sees Heather again, looking a little tired.

He too felt a little sleepy, in no small part thanks to today’s nightmare. In the days following the Walter incident, they were always so hazy, an unnamed terror that eluded definition. Now, they were clear as day, eking into his senses as if he had lived them.

She’s in the backseat, but he doesn’t know for how long, exactly. Maybe days. Maybe years. All he knows is that a life without her is a life not worth living.

He could see the lake amidst the setting sun. It’s absolutely breathtaking, a sight she would’ve loved. But she can’t see it now, and it’s all his fault, but at least it’s a beautiful place to die.

Eventually, he readies the stick, readies his acceleration. He closes his eyes right before they hit the water.

“Hello there, the angel from my nightmare,” comes a voice, and it’s Heather, smiling cheekily. She’s cupping a cup of hot coffee and handing it to him, yawning as she does so. “Here. You might need this.”

“Thanks,” he says with a smile, taking up the coffee. It’s surprisingly okay for convenience store coffee, and he sips it with gusto. Henry wonders if he should tell Heather about his latest nightmare, or if he should keep it for later, but then Douglas calls him and gives him a brief and before long he’s taking photos everywhere. 

In the background, he could hear the older man converse with the store manager, asking questions about the crime scene. Heather’s there too, keeping tabs, sometimes wandering around the store taking notes. When their eyes meet, however, she gives him a playful wink—and suddenly he’s out of breath, and he doesn’t know why. 

Henry tries not to show how flustered he is as he moves to the next location. He starts to negotiate with himself—maybe he should tell Heather about the dream, he’s told her the one before—but in the middle of his worrying Douglas taps him on the shoulder, asking if he’s done taking pictures. When he stutters a yes, he notices Heather chuckling at how startled he is, and relaxes himself a bit.

As they prepare to leave, she nudges him in the ribs. “You doing anything later?”

He briefly looks at his watch. It’s 11:21 in the evening.

“No…?”

“Wanna go to the cemetery with me?”

It was a strange request, but he’s seen stranger things, and somehow going to a cemetery with a new acquaintance seemed better than waiting for a new nightmare to come. 

He says yes, and Heather makes a short fist pump while trying to contain her enthusiasm.

* * *

Harry Mason’s grave is a little hard to spot, but Heather breezes through like clockwork, knowing exactly where to go. She moves so fast that Henry sometimes stops to catch his breath, a little exhausted. 

When he arrives at the grave, she’s already sitting down, patting the patch of grass next to her. “This is dad,” she says, voice in a little singsong before motioning for him to sit. He does so a little cautiously, stumbling as he wills his creaky limbs to move.

“Hey dad! This is Henry, he’s a photographer,” she says to the gravestone, smiling. “Remember how you were looking for a photographer for your new book? Too bad we didn’t meet him then, huh?”

He’s a little confused but understands it’s her own personal ritual, a way to cope with her father’s death. “New book?” he asks, and she gives him a smile.

“Yeah! Dad was this big crime novelist before he…” she says, the smile disappearing. He could hear the rustling of leaves, the incoming breeze. 

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” she says, sitting up again. “But how about you? You never did answer me back at the café.”

“Me?” he says. “There’s nothing really… much to be said…”

She gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “Oh, come on! Silent, reserved type with a mysterious past? I’m pretty sure you’ve got some stories to tell.”

He rubbed his shoulder a bit. “Really, I’m not that interesting of a person.”

Her eyes held an impish glint. “I don’t believe you.”

He sighed, looking at the landscape. The cemetery looked beautiful under the blue light, the moon.

“Well, I…” he started. “There was that one time. I was locked in my apartment, and I didn’t know why.”

“Yeah, Frank told us about that one, ” Heather said, resting her chin on her knees. “Did you try calling a locksmith or something?”

“No, I mean…” Damn, why was it so hard for him to speak? “It was a little more than that. There were chains on the wall, and nobody could hear me when I called for help.”

This time Heather kept silent, entranced.

“Then there was this hole… it kept getting bigger and bigger, and every time I entered it, I was in a strange world, like our world but different.”

“Different?” Heather said.

“Yeah. Dirtier, and a little rusty. There were monsters there. I saw people getting killed,” he continued, feeling his heart beat a little faster. Why was he feeling this way? It’s been years, hasn’t it? “And there was this guy, Walter Sullivan. He… he was the one killing people. He was trying to complete this ritual so he could get to his mother.”

“The 21 Sacraments,” she said, gasping. He looked at her in astonishment.

“How did you know?”

“It’s… kinda a weird story,” she said, cupping her cheek in her hand. “But then you have your own weird story, so I guess it’s fair if I tell you mine. Well,” she continued, sighing. “Remember the janky cult I was talking about? There was a girl there, once—her mother was the high priestess of one of its sects, who believed that God would come through a heavenly birth. But there’s another sect that apparently believed that God would come through a sacred ritual. I think your guy comes from the latter.”

“I see,” Henry said. “But what does any of this have to do with you?”

“You won’t believe me, but,” she said, hugging her legs. “I was the girl, once. Or at least, a part of her. So sometimes I remember the things she’s seen, the things she experienced.” She turned to look at him. “Does that make sense?”

It did, strangely enough. Henry still couldn’t wrap his head around everything that’s happened, or why it had to happen to them in the first place, but for now it was enough to understand. To know neither of them were going crazy.

“Yeah, it does,” he said, and she smiles.

“Thanks,” she said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “And yours… yours makes complete sense too. I hope you know that.”

“Yeah.”

They fall into silence once more, but this time it’s the pleasant type, a kind of unspoken understanding. Rain eventually came to the cemetery, making the tombstones glisten in the moonlight.

They then found themselves walking in the drizzle, flashlights in hand, talking a little more about their experiences. Sometimes Henry finds himself a bit conscious of how he speaks, hoping he doesn’t slip up, but Heather doesn’t seem to mind. Instead, she’s listening, nodding, helping him out with the tricky parts.

Eventually, they hitch a ride with a late-night morgue driver when the rainfall got too intense. He called himself Travis, and when Heather saw him, she held an odd look of astonishment and wistfulness. He said he drives hearses when he doesn’t have truck assignments. Sometimes he has the craziest dreams. But he’s charming enough to trust, and Heather seems to get a kick out of his jokes, so Henry tries to relax in the man’s presence.

“So you’ve got bad dreams too, boy?” Travis asks him, and Henry just nods, a little shyly. The trucker laughs.

“Yep, they’re a dime a dozen, those dreams. You should hear about the one last night,” Travis says, making a turn. “Crazy, I tell you. Dreamt I was locked up in this apartment and some Kurt Cobain look-alike was trying to kill me. Weird, innit?”

The two paused, sharing a look. “An apartment?” Heather asks.

“Yeah. With all those chains and shit. But hey, they’re just dreams. I’ve heard somewhere they’re actually parts of your subconscious trying to tell you something,” said Travis. He chuckled. “Maybe I just don’t like Nirvana.”

Heather gave the trucker a responsive smile, before looking over to Henry. She finds him staring out the window.

“Yeah, just a dream,” he muttered.

* * *

It’s been some time since he last heard from Douglas—Heather told him he’d been busy working on an exposé of some sort—so, for the most part, he’d been staying at home, developing pictures in his own personal darkroom. Every now and then he’d be called to do some fashion shoots, but they were few and away, usually taking one day every two weeks before he had time to develop them. Fortunately, they paid well, so he didn’t have to worry too much about his budget.

The only problem was that the extended resting period often brought the nightmares back again. Eventually, Henry found himself once more in fits of listless sleep, haunted by specters he couldn’t comprehend.

It’s also given him terrible bouts of panic attacks, palpitations in the middle of the night that just won’t go. He considers seeing a shrink, but he’s not so sure if his budget would allow him—he had three more payments to make that week alone.

The thought of it just suffocates him further.

It’s in the middle of this paralyzing stupor that he hears his doorbell ring, which jolts him up a bit. Maybe he should ignore it? He looks at his clock and raises an eyebrow. Who could possibly be visiting at this hour?

He eventually hears the door open, and he starts getting goosebumps, breaths becoming more ragged and shallow. He wonders if it’s Room 302 all over again, if Walter isn’t actually dead, if the figure happens to be him waiting to kill him out of spite and revenge. But that would mean he got Eileen, and oh god, what if he got Eileen—

“Henry?” came a voice, and his breaths began to relax a bit. “Open up, it’s Heather. Sorry if it’s super late, but Douglas wanted me to give you something, so I hope you don’t mind…”

Shivering, he takes a shaky hand and pushes his bangs out of his eyes, trying to breathe a little easier. He finds that it’s a lot harder than it seems, and eventually he’s still heaving as he opens the door to the blonde woman.

“Hey, Heather,” he says, in between breaths. “I… wasn’t expecting you…” 

She notices this and immediately looks concerned. “Hey, what’s up? You don’t look too good.”

“N-Nightmares,” he says, barely pulling out the words from his mouth. Heather holds his shoulder and guides him to the bed, turning back to the door.

“I’ll get some water,” she says, but as she’s about to leave he grabs her wrist, almost pleadingly.

“No, please,” he says, and he’s wondering why he’s so agitated, so on edge. He’s expecting a sharp reply from her, but instead, Heather holds his hand, smiling reassuringly.

“Alright, I’ll stay here. Do you want me to sit beside you?”

He can’t say it directly, so he nods instead, muscles rigid and stiff. Heather helps him lie down and sits beside him, back against the headboard and fingers folded into her lap.

He turns away from her as a little private courtesy, but he still shivers, still breathes doggedly. The room feels colder than he knows it to be, and he wonders if it’s all part of his attack or if he’s being haunted by the past.

He hears her slide down the headboard until she’s lying down, turning to him gently. “Henry?” she says.

It takes a while before he could manage a reply. “Yeah?”

“Do you need a hug?”

He feels himself retreat into himself, growing smaller, curling tighter. It’s weird enough to have Heather here, on his bed, at such an odd hour. But his ragged breath makes it hard to breathe, and everything feels unreal, and perhaps some human warmth wouldn’t hurt him one bit. 

He nods from where he’s at, and Heather reaches out to him, sliding her arms around his torso in a soft embrace. 

He feels a bit of relief, feeling her forehead on his nape and how close she is. A thought agitates him once more, however—in his wildest imaginings she turns into Walter, Walter with his arms around his throat, Walter ready to gouge his eyes out—

Immediately he turns to face her, and she’s there, she’s real; he could tell by the freckles on her face and her hazel eyes. They lock eyes momentarily, and Heather could tell how scared he is, how deep Room 302 had scarred him. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time, this Henry Townshend. He never meant for it to happen. And for such a solitary individual, it must’ve been hard keeping all of those demons to himself.

She lets him lean into her shoulder, keeping her arms as light as possible. She makes sure he doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating, like he could hallucinate Walter Sullivan at any given moment. She feels his arms limp, hanging on either side of him, unsure of what to do. “You can touch me, Henry,” she says, reassuringly, and he freezes a bit at the suggestion. 

Should he? Would he? What was he afraid of, anyway? Perhaps he had been so deprived of contact for so long that he couldn’t entirely trust himself with it. Maybe he was unsure of whether it was what he needed.

But eventually, he lets himself hug her back, arms clumsily finding their way around her body. He tries to breathe a bit more, his erratic breaths against her shoulder, and closes his eyes. Perhaps this time he’ll be able to sleep. Maybe he’ll finally wake up from this living nightmare.

Heather holds him until the break of dawn.

* * *

She finds him at the café, a different one this time, and Henry wonders how she manages to see him at the right time. But then again, he was a predictable person, and Heather had been helping with Douglas’ investigations for quite some time.

She notices that he’s a little worse for wear, dark circles sinking into his sockets.

“Hey,” she says, and Henry looks at her slowly, as if in a daze.

“Hey,” he says, a little softer than usual. Heather notices the three empty coffee cups right next to him. 

“You know,” she says, sitting down and grabbing one of the cups. “If you keep this up you’re never going to sleep.”

“That’s okay,” he says, still dazed and disoriented. “It’s not like I really want to, anyway.”

She folds her hands and rests her chin on them. “Nightmares again?”

He yawns and rubs an eye. “Yeah. Kinda. I don’t… I don’t think I can stay alone in my apartment for too long.”

They stare down for a moment, neither one saying a word.

“That Travis guy,” Henry starts, breaking the ice. “Did you know him?”

“Hm?” Heather says, looking up to meet his eyes. They look so glossy, almost like he’s dreaming. “Yeah. In a way. He saved me from burning to death.”

“As Alessa?”

“Yeah.“

“So he knows about Silent Hill?” he asks, extending vowels in between words.

“I guess? I think I—well, she—was guiding him then. Back when she was trying to prevent the first attempt to birth the god.”

“I guess that’s how he knows about the room,” Henry said, placing his elbows on the table. Groaning, he rested his head on his arms and ran his fingers through his hair, slightly tugging on the roots.

Heather looks at him in concern. “It must be getting to you really bad.”

He groaned again in response, and for a moment they sat there in silence. “I sometimes wonder if it’s the nightmares,” Henry said, softly. “Or if it’s the fact that I can’t seem to move on from them.”

“Hey,” Heather says, a little forcefully. “Don’t put yourself down like that.”

Henry sighed, resting his cheek on the table. “But it’s true. You’re okay. Travis is okay. I feel like I’m the only one who can’t move past this. And I don’t know why.”

“Henry…” she starts, although the words seem to fumble in her mouth. She isn’t sure what to say exactly—besides Douglas, she’s never really been in a place to comfort another survivor this way. And Douglas being Douglas, he didn’t really count, either. 

“I guess we just process things differently, you know? Like, for the most part, I was just really pissed when everything happened… happened. And Travis might look okay, but even I don’t know what he went through after he saved me,” she said, reassuringly.

He continued to bury his face into his arms. Heather wonders if he’s sleeping, but at that point, it’s apparent they’re at a standstill.

“I watched them die.”

She pressed her lips together. “Don’t say that,” she said, weakly.

“Not just them, though. The others. Your dad. Frank’s son.” He looked up at her from his resting position, and she could see the red veins reaching across his sclera. “Did I tell you about that? I dreamt of James the other night. Right before he killed himself.”

She kept silent, feeling a little helpless as she observed him further. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly. “I don’t know what to say.”

They just looked at each other in silence for a while. Henry exhaled, sharply. “It’s fine,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I guess there’s nothing that can be done, anyway.”

“Hey, now that just hurts my feelings,” Heather said, attempting a smile. “I was the Holy Mother for a while, after all. It’s an insult to my sacredness.”

Henry then paused for a moment, taking in words slowly. He felt his mouth quirk on impulse, chuckling softly as he ran his fingers through his bangs. “Right,” he said, looking a little lighter than he was a while ago. “I keep forgetting. Twice reincarnated.”

“And a saint,” she said, folding her arms in mock condescension. “Bitches from Silent Hill grovel at my feet.”

He’s smiling a bit more now, and she’s glad, really, because she didn’t think she’d see him as jovial as he did in the short period they’ve known each other. 

“Though, honestly,” she says, folding her fingers on the table and leaning a little closer to him. “I get scared sometimes, too. Like, every now and then I feel like someone’s watching me, and it’s fucking terrifying. I sometimes worry I’ll just wake up one morning and see a creepy-ass letter from Stanley Coleman.” She reached out to touch his arm reassuringly. “So you’re not alone in this, okay?”

There’s a glint of hope in his eyes, and she finds it pretty—real pretty—though she reserves the thought in case it turns into something more.

“Okay,” he says, and despite his disheveled self there seems to be a weight off his shoulders. “Thank you, Heather.” Then, a little quietly, “And, you know. For two nights ago.”

She smiled back. “No biggie. And,” she added. “You can call me Cheryl.”

A pause.

“I think I might need to find somewhere else to live,” said Henry. Heather let herself laugh.

“You sure do.”

* * *

There’s something uncanny about seeing the walls bare, thinks Henry. He’s not entirely sure if it’s the hue or the fact that he’d been used to seeing them strewn with pictures, but seeing them barren felt bittersweet. And necessary.

Sighing, he bent to pick another box off the floor, contents peeking out of the flaps. It’s the Crimson Tome, and it’s funny how some time ago he couldn’t spare so much a glance at its direction. Slowly, however, it’s beginning to feel more like a part of him, and he thinks he should just allow it.

There are a few more boxes left over, but at least he has help this time. He meets Heather—or Cheryl, rather—at the lobby, bringing a pushcart. She spies the tome as he carries the box.

“Ooh,” she says, fascinated. “So that’s the tome, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says, and she pulls it out swiftly, thumbing through the pages.

“But this isn’t part of God’s will! It’s heretical,” she says, affecting Claudia’s voice and pointing upward. He laughs in spite of himself, and noting this accomplishment, Heather smiles and closes the book, placing it back into the box. “Douglas is going to have a field day if you give that to him, though.”

He nodded. Apparently, the exposé Douglas had been working hard on was about the Order.

“Douglas isn’t coming today?” Henry asks.

“Nah, still busy with the thing. Also, he’s been complaining about his back since yesterday, so I doubt he’ll be able to help out with the moving.”

“You sure he won’t mind?”

Heather smiled, giving him a light punch to the shoulder. “Come on, we’ve discussed this already! You’re totally welcome with us. Plus, we kinda need someone to split the rent with,” she says, a little coyly. “Also, the moving van’s here. Guess who’s driving.”

Before he could respond, they’re right next to the van, with a smiling Travis Grady at the driver’s seat.

“Travis,” he said, incredulous. “What are you doing here?”

The trucker chuckled. “Serendipity called, I guess. And I owe you an apology,” he said. “Frank told me about what happened. I guess the Nirvana joke wasn’t as funny as I thought it’d be.”

Henry gave him a small smile. “It’s fine, really,” he said, leading with a nervous chuckle. “I didn’t know you and Frank were acquainted, though.”

“Boy, in my line of work, you get to meet all kinds of people,” he said in good nature. 

“You got any boxes left to pack, Henry?” came Heather, arms wrapped around another box. She loads it into the van, emptying the pushcart before dusting her hands on her pants.

“Just a few more in the room,” he said. He turned to Travis. “Sorry. I’ve got to— “

Travis dismissed him with the wave of a hand. “Say no more, son. Can’t keep a lady waiting.”

“Henry!”

“Coming,” he said, giving the trucker a nod and heading to where Heather was.

Before he brought down the last of the boxes, he gave the room one last look, gazing at its hollow glory. He still remembers the time he boarded out Room 302 —that tingling sensation as he packed, answering baffled questions from the police and Frank as they searched the storeroom—and wonders what’s changed. The pastel room, after all, had been home to a number of nightmares as well, although they were not as crazy as his ordeal with Walter.

But that wasn’t it, however. There was something else, something in the air, in the atmosphere. Or maybe it was something in himself. Nonetheless, as Henry loaded the rest of his things into the van—boarding along with Heather and Travis, who were already making light banter—he felt, for the first time in a long time, that things were finally normal.

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting from Tumblr! Glad that I finally have a place to store all of these, hehe. If you want to see more of my work, you can find a masterlist right [here,](http://fandomshipping.tumblr.com/post/137745900394/fandomshippings-fanfiction-masterlist) since most of the stuff is old and... a little... poorly written, lol. Hoping to add more stuff here in the future!


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